


all I ever wanted

by yawnralphio



Series: Fictober20 [10]
Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: M/M, eddie is the dark souls of gift shopping, fictober20
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:14:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26959369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yawnralphio/pseuds/yawnralphio
Summary: Buck struggles to figure out what Eddie wants for Christmas.
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV)
Series: Fictober20 [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1967260
Comments: 8
Kudos: 128





	all I ever wanted

Buck sat at the firehouse, chewing on his bottom lip and staring off into the distance. How the fuck was he supposed to know what Eddie wanted for Christmas?

Sure, they worked together. And sure, they’d gone on a couple dates - not that Christopher knew that part yet, anyway. Things were going smoothly as far as he was concerned, and Chris had just gone and thrown a wrench into it.

Was _he_ supposed to get Eddie a gift?

Christmas was only a few weeks way, and the holiday spirit was in full force around the 118.

Eddie came skipping up the steps to the balcony where Buck had taken a position on the couch, a Santa hat sitting crookedly on his perfect head.

“Hey, _cariño_ ,” he said, crossing to sit on the arm of the chair beside him. He plucked the hat from his head and deposited it on Buck’s.

“Hey yourself,” Buck smiled, adjusting the hat so it didn’t cover his ears. He shook his head, making the little ball at the tip flop back and forth.

“Are you busy? I’m hungry.”

“I could eat,” Buck said, looking down at his phone. He quickly backed out of his notes app and hid the list of ideas he’d been brainstorming. They stood simultaneously, and Buck started to follow Eddie down the stairs. “Hey, what’s your favorite restaurant?”

Eddie looked over his shoulder, making a face as they walked. “What? Why?”

“You know,” Buck said vaguely.

“I don’t know, I don’t really have one. Wherever I’m eating with you or Chris.”

So helpful.

∞

They’d been called to a department store after some kind of fight broke out among the scent isle, and the blend of apples, cinnamons, and florals that surrounded them were making Buck’s head spin.

One of the women involved had gone into anaphylactic shock due to one of the ingredients in the perfume. The store manager was able to deliver her EpiPen. She was breathing when they arrived, but the standard protocol was to send them off to the hospital just in case.

They loaded her into the ambulance shortly, and Buck patted the back of the bus with Eddie before the question occurred to him.

“Hey, what kind of cologne do you wear?”

Eddie snorted, peeling off his gloves in such a way that they turned in on themselves. He tossed them into a nearby trashcan. “I don’t know, whatever smells good when I’m shopping. Cheap stuff, usually. I don’t really wear it.”

“Yeah,” Buck frowned, following him over to where Bobby was leaned against the fire truck, waiting for them.

“What about you, Bobby? You wear cologne?”

Bobby glanced up from his clipboard and shrugged one shoulder. “Athena doesn’t really like cologne. She says she just likes the way I smell.”

Buck climbed into the truck after Eddie, and carefully erased cologne from his list.

∞

Buck pushed the shopping cart slowly behind Eddie as they trailed through the grocery store. Eddie was picking items off shelves, consulting a hand written list every few feet.

“You know, if you just told me what was on your stupid list, I could help you find the right isle,” Buck sang it, trying to hide his boredom.

“If I do, you’ll just convince me to add a bunch of junk food.” Eddie moved along, and Buck sighed, purposefully running the cart into his hip.

He grinned when Eddie turned a scowl on him.

“I should’ve just left you with Chris and Carla,” Eddie groused, stuffing the paper into his pocket. He turned toward Buck and leaned his hands on the walls of the cart, studying him.

“It would definitely be more fun than errands,” Buck agreed.

“So you’d rather hang out with my kid than me?”

Buck bit his lip on a smile. “Your kid’s cuter.”

“True.” Eddie straightened and pulled the list from his pocket. Beside him sat a forty piece kitchen set, complete with deep dish ceramic bakeware.

“Hey, you need any of this?” Buck gestured toward the box, where a generic woman smiled eerily as she held up one of the teal pieces.

Eddie glanced at it and rolled his eyes. “You’ve been to my house. You’ve _cooked_ in my house. What am I missing?”

“Uh,” Buck faltered, taking a closer look at the box. “It isn’t color coordinated?”

Eddie laughed and kept walking.

∞

Buck let himself into the Diaz house, announcing his presence by noisily tossing his keys into the dish by the door.

“Buck?” Came a small voice from down the hall.

“Hey, buddy,” Buck called back, easing out of his shoes. He moved toward the sound and found Christopher in his bedroom, Carla seated on his bed as she watched him play on the floor.

“Did you find out?” Chris looked up at him, the oversized Legos temporarily abandoned.

“Not yet.” Buck crouched down in front of him, examining the mass of blocks he’d stuck together. “You got any ideas?”

Christopher grinned sheepishly. “No, silly, that’s why I asked you.”

Buck dropped down onto the floor, content to play with Chris while they all waited for Eddie to get home. They didn’t have to wait for long; he heard the front door open less than twenty minutes later, and Eddie appeared in Chris’ doorway looking run down. Soot rested high on one cheekbone; he’d either been too exhausted to shower at the end of shift, or too eager to get home. He smiled tiredly at them.

“Ain’t that a welcome sight.”

“What’d you do, roll around in the ashes?” Buck teased as he rose up off the floor. He moved closer and Eddie automatically opened his arms, pulling him into a warm embrace. Buck dropped a kiss on his temple and stayed close after Eddie sagged against him.

“I thought it was polite to share,” Eddie said, rubbing his cheek against Buck’s.

“Gross,” Buck laughed. Christopher giggled behind him. “Beer?”

“Please,” Eddie said, nodding grimly. Buck followed him to the kitchen, waiting for Eddie to tell him about the call. He stayed quiet, even after he’d popped the top on both their beers and taken a long sip from his own. He looked tense and tired, one too many double shifts weighing down his shoulders.

Buck sighed and set his beer down. “You look like you could use a massage.”

“Is that an offer?” Eddie asked wryly.

“Yeah,” Buck said. His sleuthing would hold for another day or two.

∞

The days flew by, and Buck started feeling the pressure of Christmas closing in. It wasn’t just the music that followed them everywhere, it was the ads, the commercials, the endless stream of Santas parading around town.

He’d taken to asking Eddie about every billboard they passed.

“Have you ever played with a drone? Do you gamble? Ever thought about getting a puppy?”

Two weeks had gone by in a flash, and he still didn’t have a clue what Eddie might want or need. He’d even taken to leaning over on the rare occasion Eddie looked at his phone, hoping to see one of the creepy targeted ads on his social media, but it was never anything useful.

Eddie was one of the most difficult people he’d ever shopped for, and Buck was running out of time. Eddie seemed to have caught on and was losing patience for the whole charade.

Just a few days before Christmas, he stopped short in the middle of making dinner and turned to Buck with a troubled expression. They’d been cooking quietly, the conversation died down as they each focused at the stove.

“Buck,” he began, and hesitated. He tried again. “Look, I’m not an idiot; I know why you’ve been asking me all these questions.”

“Wait,” Buck broke in, turning to face him with his spatula still in hand.

“No, listen. Buck, I love you. You don’t need to get me anything for Christmas, okay? It means a lot that you just want to be here.”

Buck winced, setting the spatula down so it wouldn’t drip red sauce all over the floor. “You don’t understand. It's… Christopher.”

“What about Christopher?” Eddie frowned.

Buck leaned to the side, glancing into the living room to make sure Chris was sufficiently distracted. “He wanted me to find out what you wanted for Christmas. I’m sorry, he really wanted it to be a surprise.”

Eddie blinked slowly at him, and turned without saying a word. Buck followed him towards the living room, lingering at the threshold as Eddie moved to sit beside his son.

“Hey, kiddo,” he said, ruffling Christopher’s hair. “You know you don’t need to get me presents, right?”

Christopher looked away from the television, his eyes enlarged behind his glasses. He blinked at Buck in the doorway and finally turned his attention on Eddie. “But Santa never gets you any.”

Eddie’s smile was soft, and he pulled Christopher into a sideways hug. “He doesn’t need to get me anything, buddy. All I ever wanted was you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [tumblr](https://yawnralphio.tumblr.com/).
> 
> Reblog [here](https://yawnralphio.tumblr.com/post/631631616094175232/10-all-i-ever-wanted-fox-911-fluff-gift).


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